 So let me start off with a quick story. So when I was in college, I had a good friend who never throw a brick in my hand. And I think that's true. In some cases, we are afraid to say something to somebody's face or be able to tell the truth about things. And there's a quote from Mark Twain. He says, how truth is the most of cowdly lies. And so for really all of us, we should never throw a brick in either hand and we should never provide half-truths. And so what I want to do today is they spent a little time talking to you about things that I think as leaders, whether you're on the officer's side or particularly in this case, as a senior listed leader, expectations, working with senior officers, working with a young enemy. And then just to ensure that there's no half-truths that we share as we go forward. And so first of all, thanks for the opportunity to be with you today. I really wish I'd been there in person. I actually had great plans to be there. But unfortunately, current events kind of kept me here in Washington, DC. And I look forward to crossing cash in the future. Thanks to General Hucker for the introduction. But most importantly, congratulations to all of you. This is a pretty huge milestone in each one of your Air Force career, not just for you, but for the Airmen, you've had an opportunity to lead the Airmen that actually spend time entering. But most importantly, also your family and friends who also celebrate in this particular milestone with you. And so I think that's a huge accomplishment. Realizing as I've been told, you're the 1% of our enlisted corps. And having worked with a number of chiefs, I also know you're not afraid of telling the truth. You're not shy. And so welcome to the club and not being shy. And we're really excited to have you be where you are today. And hopefully over the course, these troubled days are together. I think the one thing that I find when you have courses like this is the aspect of when you do courses like, you know, you'll take a lot of notes this week. And then you'll go out and do what you do. You probably won't go back in for your notes. The beauty of what happens in a week like this is the aspect that you actually have some time to just really think, and soak it all in, and really look at your leadership as you move forward. And so what I want to do that, first of all, is to share it with you some of my expectations. So if you go to the next slide, please. And so it's been about 18 months now that I've been the chief. And I will tell you that every day counts, but every day behind you is a runway that you can't use. And it's one of those areas that I've realized that when you get in these positions of leadership, that how quickly time flies, partly because you're having fun, but also for the aspect, there's just so much going on that you just kind of lose track of time. And so what I've done throughout my career, I have a set of, you know, my leadership tennis that I use, which I use to help set expectations for those that work with me. And I can really trace these back to when I was a senior in high school, doing a radio interview I did, that eventually when I became a, you know, particularly more of a squadron commander, actually crystallized and had been able to use time and time again. And so it's executed at high standard, be disciplined in execution, pay attention to detail and have fun. Executed at high standard, person and profession, I do not play for second place. If I'm in, I'm in the win. I'm always put my best foot forward and I expect that for myself, but I also expect that from everybody who works with me to be doing the same thing. But I also understand that I am not God's gift to everything I do. There's gonna be some things that aren't gonna work out. There's gonna have to be some off such moments, but it's not due to lack of trying. Because when I'm in things, it is my credibility that's at stake, whether it's CQ Brown, the office of the chief of staff, the United States Air Force, or in some cases the United States of America. And I take that very seriously, be disciplined in execution. I'm very process oriented. I'm one of these, my degrees in engineering, I'm also an AFI, a Biden Airman, where I try to follow the rules. I try to set the standard for how we execute. I wanna make sure that when we have a process that we execute so that you spend less time understanding the process and more time to really think about the substance of how we execute. The other part about being disciplined is I do not like wasting people's time. My time or your time. And so I'm willing to challenge, if there's something that's not quite right, I'm willing to challenge the status quo and change the process. And actually I'll tell you, as the chief, I've had different execs come through here. Have you ever thought about doing it this way? You know, I hadn't thought about it. That's a good idea, we'll adopt it. And so I'm willing to make changes to make it easier for us to get our jobs done. Detention details. I ask a lot of questions and I do that for a couple of reasons. One, I wanna be, when I go home at night, I wanna be smarter than when I walked in in the morning. As a leader, you always wanna continue to learn. The other reason why I ask is partly because I've been burned. And it's not that I don't trust people, but sometimes I don't trust people. And it's very easy when folks come to you now and they'll go, hey, sir, don't worry about it, it's all taken care of. Chief, don't worry about it, it's all taken care of. That's when you should worry. If they can't come back and go, it's all taken care of and I've done X, Y and Z. Just give you just a couple of nuggets of details. Then it makes you wonder, usually that's a sign for when they say it's all taken care of. Now they're gonna go out and step out and now go take care of it to do a little bit of CYA. Okay, and so really, you ask those questions to ensure the things that you, people are meeting your intent. And then the last reason I really do that is, if I'm gonna challenge the status quo on something, I can't go in and start challenging the status quo just based on emotion. I gotta have some facts, some details to go with. You know, I will tell you the facts make me emotional, just as emotional as a person wants me to go do something. But I just, I'm just not gonna jump on somebody's desk just because someone is jumping on my desk. I gotta understand why, to be able to do it. The last one is to have fun. Yeah, I enjoy what I do. I enjoy coming to work every day. I like to say every day is a good day. Just some days are better than others. And it's the ability to actually do what we do. And if you don't, if you don't, you're not having fun doing this. You probably need to be doing something else. Or questioning why you're still here. I think all of us are still here, partly for a couple of reasons. One, because we enjoy what we do. We enjoy serving. But we also, as I like to say, my wife, each, my wife's sharing each morning pins my permission slip to my backpack, just like, you know, our parents did when we were in grade school. It allows me to come to the Pentagon every day. Because at some point she could say, I've seen enough of this. And just say, hey, we're gonna move on. And so she's gotta be having a little bit of fun too, with some of this, or at least some toleration to allow me to do what I do. And I think that's a key aspect. And the last thing I'd say is, part of this having fun is to take care of yourself. You know, we're not getting any younger, none of us. And the key part of this, having fun is, you know, enjoy life because, you know, you gotta have a life outside of work. And so I'd encourage you to do some things to try to really take care of yourself. The last thing I think you can expect for me, and is the aspect of, as your chief, is I try to be very open, very transparent. I try to collaborate. I like bringing folks into the discussion. But I will make a decision. I'm not afraid to make a decision. Even if it's gonna upset some people. And a matter of fact, if I make a decision and one side's really happy and the other side's really upset, then I probably didn't get the right decision, some cases. There's gotta be some give and take there as we move forward and look at what's good for the, not just for different parts of the Air Force, but what's good for the entire Air Force. And so with that, that's why I wrote the Accelerate Change of Lives. You go to the next slide, please. Accelerate Change of Lives is really, I had two options when I came in this position and when I was being mentored by those that sat in this chair before and those others that in service chiefs. You can do one or two things. You could spend about a year studying what it is you're gonna do and then lay out your strategic approach or you can bring your strategic approach out very early into your tenure and then adjust as you go. And so I chose the latter. Because as a senior officer and I think as a senior in CEO, there's things about how you lead and how you wanna operate. And I like action. I do not like studying problems. I like solving problems. And so part of this was knowing that there was so many things going on as I was coming into this position that we're gonna drive change anyway. Stand up for the space force, COVID. From the time I interviewed with the president to the time I got confirmed and into the chair, we were into COVID and we're still here. Aspects of racial disparity. The aspects of really the geo-strategic environment and today's current events will tell you that's exactly where we are here as well. So there's a lot of things that are driving change. And so I really believe let's just ride the wave of change. But at the same time though, because of the position I was in as a Pat Gaff commander, I also knew that, hey, if we didn't change, we were at risk. We're at risk of losing aspects of our national security, losing it in a high end fight, losing quality immunity to our families because we're not doing the things to be able to support them. And so to me, you got to change and change is hard. And I understand that. But again, if you go back to executing a high standard, I'm in the wind when I play, okay? And so I'm not afraid to take a risk to drive that change. And so that's what accelerator change or lose is all about. It's interesting that, I can say it, I hear an airman talk about it when I go out and travel, but when I hear people outside the air force, whether it be in think tanks or when I testified recently here to be on the 12th of January with the House Appropriations Committee, and I have a couple of members of Congress talking about accelerator change or lose, then it's starting to sink in. Will it take some time to get there? Yeah, it will. Something will be able to change fast than others. But we can't wait and to continue this study, we got to actually act. And then the action orders. The action orders, the areas we're focused on. Emerson's pretty straightforward. And we think we're making pretty good progress there. Bureaucracy, I'll just tell you, Bureaucracy's met Bureaucracy. It is hard to make drive change here, and particularly here in the Pentagon. People are set in their ways, but we're making some changes there, and I'll talk about that in here in a second. Competition is not so much knowing what kind of weapons systems they have. It's really about how they think. How do our adversaries think? And if we understand how they think, a little bit about their culture, it helps us to better compete because we can burn a large APA. But if we burn it in the wrong place for the wrong reason, it's not gonna actually help us compete, okay? And then the last one is design implementation. It's really how we look at the future of the Air Force and think about where we need to be five, 10, 15 years from now, how we start to make the transition there. Just this past week or last week, I laid out modification one to the action orders. And the action orders are written in a five paragraph format for a very distinct reason because that's the way it happens in the joint world. If we're gonna operate in the joint world, we gotta understand how people write in the joint world. At the same time, having served most of my career as my time as a general officer in joint assignments, you do modifications to the orders because things change. The facts and assumptions where you started with the orders actually change. Sometimes the orders, when they meet contact with the staff, they don't survive the way you thought. And so we did modifications to each one of them. Airmen didn't change, Action Order A didn't really change much because we're on a good path there. Action Order D, design implementation didn't change much because we're on a good path there. We're just aligning a bit more with our new secretary of the Air Force. Action Order C probably had some deeper changes because we had more time to really think about how we approach that. And one that's probably changed in most is Action Order B and bureaucracy. And what we did there is actually moved it out of the A-5-7 as the staff as the OPR and moved it up to the vice chief of staff so we can drive a little harder on things you wanna do. It's really about collaboration and doing Microsoft Teams, all the things we've been kinda doing during COVID but taking it to the next level. And so we are making some progress but probably not at the rate I want in certain areas. But change is hard and change takes time. And I think part of this, if we really believe in it, we need to be persistent and consistent to get you to move forward. And that's exactly what I expect. Now, when I look at the Action Order, they're primarily written here for the Air Staff but it's really intent, my intent for the Air Force of how we approach things. And so with that, it's basically a license for you to go out as senior leaders, as new chiefs, to take a look at those and how do you apply those at your location? And so I just ask you to think about that for each one of those, how those apply the things you can do and what you can have an influence. And probably the most important place you have an influence is where they're at. And so if I get to the next slide, please, here's what I expect to you as new chiefs. And this is what I expect of our old chiefs that I can see sitting in the front row as well. I expect you to be experts that can really drive not only your expertise or your career field, but experts about the Air Force because you bring yourself to a different level. I think you need to be candid and comfortable to the challenge of status quo. And I realize the reason why you're here is because you've been able to challenge the status quo in the past. I also think it's not so much about driving consensus, it's actually getting to the right answer. Okay, and how do you bring people along as you do that? It's how you provide options that are really for the enterprise. Not just for your part of the Air Force but really more thinking more broadly about the entire force. And it's also taking care of the airmen and families that you're privileged to lead. And really it's important your leadership team as you do that. And so if I go back and you take a look at the Little Brown book and what it talks about and what we expect from chiefs. And from Chief Mass, you're charged with mentoring and developing our junior and listed personnel. At the same time, they have a strong influence on our company-based officers and the professional involvement. So it's one day they're gonna be sitting in a church just like this as a senior officer. They can always go back and look to a senior and CEO to help influence them and get them on the right path when they start their career. You need to bring your experience. You're both your technical expertise but your leadership expertise to the table. And then it's really how you develop and run organization, bring your organizational skills and work your assigned tasks. It's really about as well as it kind of changing out of the Little Brown book is how you balance the aspect of airmen and mission. We've got to get the mission done but if we're not taking care of our airmen, we can't get it done. I'd like to say that all the equipment we have would be a static display without airmen. And so we really need not just you but how do you motivate those airmen to and empower them? And that's why when we look at Air Force Doctrine Publication One and the aspect of mission command, what that really is is trust and empowerment. One, that our airmen trust their leadership that we have their back. At the same time, we trust our airmen. We're able to empower them. We're able to allow them to do some things. And so when we do that as leaders, I really think there's three things I think about. You gotta be able to delegate, tolerate and iterate. You gotta delegate more, okay? Which means you can't do it all, particularly as you move into the role as a chief. You have to delegate to some other NCOs, some junior NCOs to make things happen. You gotta tolerate, which means they're not gonna do it exactly like you would. And so you can't get upset because they're not gonna do it exactly, this is a chance for you to mentor by tolerating a little bit more. And you gotta iterate more, which means you gotta be involved in the process. You can't wait to get a finished product and then go, hey, I don't like that. And then start over again. You gotta be involved. So I really look at myself as an action officer here in the Pentagon. I've served as an action officer before. I'm just a more senior action officer. Bobby has a little more throwaway now. But I like being involved in the process. I do not like getting things at the end and going, and now people want me to go sign off on it. And I don't really have, I don't have buy-in to it. And so this is how, as a leader, I think you gotta be in the trenches with your men to help them move some of these things along and get their ideas as you move forward. I think you also need to be a trusted advisor. Because of your years of experience, what you're gonna have is that you're gonna be a conduit of information. Because I will just tell you as a chief, folks don't come talk to me to tell me all the bad news. That's why 10-Pen on the SIMS app sometimes. Because some folks will come talk to her. And then we talk just about every weekend and catch up on, okay, here's some things that she heard that I, you know, folks aren't telling me. Or I can also tell her some things I'm hearing that maybe don't fill it down to the field. Here's the why. And how we bring those two of those things together is so important. And you gotta build that relationship with the different aspects of leadership team. I think it's also, as an advisor on how we do enlist the PME, how we do, they'll all let our airmen, how we look at our step program and identify those exceptional performers. How we work the mentoring of our airmen to get to CCAF and get to Airmen Leadership School, NCO academies. And the last part is really speaking truth. And because you're gonna see some things. It's really how you do it. You know, and you can sit back in the back and complain, or you can actually bring, you know, not only a problem, but some solutions. Because the one thing I, you know, what I talk about as a chief, you know, you can come to give me the problem. I could probably solve it. But if you don't bring a solution, I'm probably gonna solve it, not the way you want it. I wish he hadn't done that. And so the more you're able to kind of provide some solutions and some recommendations, I think that'll be important. I talked about the mentorship already, and I won't hit on that again, but it's important that you mentor, and you're always gonna be a mentor as a chief. People are gonna turn to you. And you really gotta think about if you're the old crusty chief and no one wants to talk to you, you ain't doing mentoring, okay? You gotta be approachable. You gotta be people who've got a willing to come up to you and see you as a person that they wanna engage with. In order to do that, you gotta be visible. And so you gotta get from behind your desk and get out and spend time with folks so that your airman can see you. And that includes not just on the airman, but I would also say in the local community as well. Because you have a lot of influence on how we shape things in our various local communities. Next slide. So now we shift in gears and what do our airmen expect from you? And I can say this with some credibility because of every base I go to when I visit the base, I always go and have breakfast with airmen. 10 to 12 airmen that sit down with me and I do it without leadership in the room. So if I show up at your base and you go a CSAP, is it okay if I sit in the breakfast with the young airman? The answer is no. So don't bother asking. Okay, I do the same thing with the wing commanders. I was at the wing commanders course last week. I said, if I show up at your base, I'm having breakfast with airmen, don't bother asking because I'm not gonna invite you to the room. I wanna just sit down with them. This is how I get feedback. Because ideally I try to tell stories of my experience to open them up. And one of the things I always ask, one question I always ask is what do you want from your leadership? And the things that they always tell me is I want my leadership to know me as a person. I want them to care about me and I want them to support me. And so part of that is us, in some cases, I would say be able to virtually take off your rank and be able to just sit down with people and get to know them. And that's what the airmen wanna know. I mean, they just want someone to get to know them. And sometimes they wanna get to know you. How did you get to become a chief as a person? And that's how I started in our Air Force. And none of us are over night sensations. This is a couple of decades, if not more, worth of work to get where you are. And you probably got some stories. I bet there's a handful of you in the room that probably lost the stripe or two. And it was a moment. There's some things happening where I failed. That my initial check write in F-16, I failed. So how you doing your first operational squad and you failed your check write? What kind of mark does that leave? You mean it's a motivator. It's those kinds of things that the airmen wanna know about us to go, hey, you could have some setback and still be successful. And so I think it's important that we do think about that and how we empower and we look at our airmen and how we help them solve problems. And often, what they get frustrated with, there's another person they get frustrated with is, there's someone in the middle, there's an NCO above them that doesn't really, it's just not working with them. Always tells them no. And this is where we as leaders can really engage with our airmen to get a better sense of where things are to help drive. And sometimes they gotta push from the bottom, we gotta pull from the top to pull these things together. And that's why it's so important that we are engaging when the airmen are listening to what they have to say. And so part of it is also building strong relationships with your first sergeants, with the key spouses, and with the junior leaders, the first line supervisors that will give you that feedback. And you'll probably have some of your trusted agents that will talk to you and come tell you things that others won't. That won't give you the half truth that is really a calorie lie. And so you really gotta spend some time engaging to get information. You gotta fight for that information. So it's not gonna roll up to you on a silver platter. And so let me shift gears real quick and I'll give you some of my thoughts on leaders. Next slide. I use this presentation and this pretty much at all levels for most junior levels to our most senior levels with our general officers. And so what I really believe about leadership is in order to, before you can lead others, you gotta lead yourself. The first thing to do is think about the graphic there, Daisy and Daffy Duck, is to dance with what bring you. You are a chief select because of who you are. What you have already done. It's how you've already danced throughout your career. Okay, so all of a sudden now, now you're your chief, start changing everything to your step on your own toes. And people will just see right through it, be yourself. Now, but you also can pick up other dance steps as you go. You always need to continue to learn as a leader. So don't go change a lot, continue to learn and put some other dance steps in your repertoire as a leader. Next graphic on a scale of one to 10. If you're two, you're never gonna be a 10. 50% of the world is below average. 50% of the people that are on this net right now are below average. The question is, below average at what? And so what you need to do is do a little bit of self-assessment. And there are certain things you're probably a two at and certain things you may be a six or seven at. The things you're a two at, you can work really hard and get yourself to a three, four, or five and be average. The things you're a six or seven at, you can work really hard at and get yourself to eight, nine, or 10. What I encourage you to do, the things you're a two at is just give up. Hire somebody with that skill set and make them part of your team or bring them into your team and let them carry that load. And you work on the things that you're kind of good at to get yourself to eight, nine, or 10, okay? It's a, you know, it's the whole aspect for those that have to see another, you know, offices attract. I'm an extrovert, my wife is an extrovert, okay? I'm a two as an extrovert. So I married an extrovert. It's that kind of concept that you gotta be thinking about. That's why I have the vendors on the slide. I'm a huge Spider-Man fan. And when I think about the Avengers and you think about, you know, what you're good at, what your super, you know, what your superpower is, if the Avengers all had the same superpower, would they be the Avengers? If your team all acted and operated exactly like you, would you be a high-powered functioning team? Probably not. So take the time to forget your own skill sets, the things you're superpowers, figure out the things that are not your superpowers and surround yourself with people that have the superpowers you do not have. Next is more economists, less sports illustrator. So until recently, you know, I was reading sports illustrator all the way through college, since I was in college. And so I, I'm a huge NFL fan. And so I've been really like falling in sports. But I also realized as you get more senior, you can't just talk about the things you're interested in. And so when I, you know, when I go to Mongolia, to meet with the Mongolian Air Chief, I can't talk NFL football, because he has no clue what I'm talking about. I got to be talking and thinking about more world events. And so when I was the one starting with the capstone, General Ashi was our senior mentor and he was really plugged in. And, you know, and everything was going on. I go, you know, I go, I mean, how's it if you try to force start keeping track of stuff? I don't even know about. And so I stopped him in the bar one night. He said, sir, how do you do this? He goes, why, I read the economists. So I have a description to this economist and I've been reading it since I was a one-star. I'm not advertising for the economists. All I'm telling you is, broaden your perspective. The one thing I like about the economists, it's not a U.S. publication to provide a different perspective. It goes once around the world every week. And so it basically keeps me clueless on some things I probably wouldn't read otherwise in sports illustrating or something else that I enjoy doing. And so all I'm telling you is to broaden your perspective, get outside your conference zone, it's gonna help you be a better leader. Down to bottom row there. As you get in position and you're getting into your position and lead, you gotta have vision. And the higher you go, the further out that vision needs to be. You're gonna wanna follow you. They just wanna know where the hell you're going. You didn't know where the hell you're going. And so you also be able to articulate it. And you need to kind of think about whatever your vision is. You need to be able to make it short and sweet that you can remember it and they can remember it. And then you gotta repeat it over and over and over again. Cause it's always gonna be someone new to the organization who hasn't heard of before or somebody who's been in the organization just haven't been paying attention. And so it's important that you make sure you're communicating that vision. You know what matters. Your credibility, your words and your relationships. Your credibility is really important. And so as a chief, realize you not only represent yourself, you represent every other chief master in the Air Force. And so the impression you make as you go forward is important. And the aspect of that is that you're gonna have, we all will have some hot sucks moments, myself included, even at this level. It's how you handle those to maintain your credibility. The aspect that you wanna have enough credibility in the banks, when you have that hot sucks moment, people kind of go, got that with strength. That's not characteristic of this particular chief. But that's not characteristic of this leader versus that is par for the course. And so think about your credibility and the things you do and the fact that now you're at a, you know, a bigger fishbowl where folks are watching you. Your words matter. And so as a chief now, people are gonna hang on your every word, more so than they have in the past. And so as we, you hear in Washington you see, we talk about the Washington Post as if, if you're okay with what you said, or what you put an email on the front page of the Washington Post, then knock yourself out. It makes you uncomfortable. You probably don't wanna say it or put it in an email. And so just think about that, that you'll choose your words wisely and realize that, particularly when you tell people, hey, do you not repeat this or don't forward it? I can guarantee you that it's been, you know, forwarded at least five times or repeated at least five times. You know, General Brown told me not to tell you, but then they spill their guts. Okay, you might use that as a technique. Do you want something to get out? Tell people not to repeat it, don't forward it. You know, that may be able to get the word out. Last thing is your relationships matter. I never want to cold call somebody in a crisis. And so what I do is I actually, I keep people on a rotating engagement schedule, why I try to call, talk, send emails, just in case, and I never burn a bridge. Okay, I may not use the bridge again or very often, but I never burn a bridge. And so one of the things I do, I have a number of Arab sheets from around the world on WhatsApp. And I correspond them just because. And it's actually pretty interesting because it drives the staff crazy sometimes because they want to deviate from WhatsApp of what we're talking about. I go, we're just talking because you never know. I might need something or they might need something, but it's just a good way to build relationships that because you never know where you're going to need it. Last thing is your leadership is like your theme song. And so now as a brand new chief, and you're all, you know, as you get ready to move to your next location, folks are going to ask, hey, what is chief filling the blank like? What they're really asking, what is your theme song? And so as your theme song, you know, just like an NFL stadium for those that have been, you know, NFL or any other stadium where the, you know, the music's rocking, everybody's getting pumped up. Everybody's excited because you're going to show up. Or is it because they're like a smooth jazz or a coffee shop music where everybody's kind of laid back and they go, this is going to be great. You know, we're not going to get much done. Or is it going to be like a horror movie? They don't want to walk in the door and talk to you. I think you need to have all three of those on your playlist. There's times you got to get people pumped up to get things done. There are times that they're, they got a lot of thrust in the factory, you need to slow them down. And there's times you need to fire for effect to get their attention. The thing you need to think about is the theme song that you think you're playing, you better hope that's the same thing they're hearing. Okay. And this is why you need to get feedback. You have to trust your agents because your, your, your playlist may be completely different that you're playing. You think you're playing from what you're hearing. He won't be able to lead us effectively. And so I just asked you to think about that. And so I think that, you know, the last thing I would highlight to you before I open up for questions is just like I started out, never throw a brick and hide your hand. Don't tell a half truth. Be one to speak up and realize that sometimes you get, you got to choose your words wisely. You may not, you know, say exactly what you think, but you got to get the point across. And that's how it was going to be make you effective as a chief, whether you're talking up the chain of command or you're talking down the chain of command term. And I think the argument I want to see you as, as real people that, you know, one day they want to be you. And this is why I think the aspect of being able to have fun in these positions is you want someone to come in and replace you. That actually, and really there's going to be some, you know, as I said, every day is a good day. Just some days are better than others. You need to highlight. And what you learn from those days that aren't as good as the other days and how you mentor our image. So they can be a better posture as they go into the future. So if you get to the last slide, well, I guess it's back to the logo there. And then let me open up for your questions. Hey chief, Chief Tony Slatt from Sockier. Great points all. Thank you so much for spending the time with us. What gaps have you seen come to light with recent events, specifically for the competition action order that you think is going to change in the future? Thank you. I think the gaps that I see, one is our understanding of the adversary. And I'll just go back to, you know, when I came in the Air Force, I got commissioned in 1984. So I came in during the Cold War. And so we actually really had a really good understanding of Soviet doctrine, Soviet equipment. You could go to the bathroom without some kind of, at least in a fighter squadron where I grew up in, without some kind of something to look at to remind you of the threat. If you think it's a PRC is our pacing challenge. If I would, you know, walk around and ask them and about the PRC and about their capabilities, about their doctrine. How well do we understand it? I'll say, even for myself, I don't think I fully understand it. And so the XORC is just as much for me as it is for everybody else. You know, because we can actually do a lot of things with our military might. But if we don't understand what button it push, if it's a button we do want to push, how our adversaries respond to it, then we're not necessarily competing. You know, when I was the pack F commander, we were doing the bomber missions. The question I asked our staff was, do they know what we're doing? Do they care? And how do I know they care? And I don't want to make them better, but I want to better understand how they, you know, when we do things, how they have my, how they might act and respond. And so from across the board, one of the things that the SEMSF and I are focused on is, you know, to the lowest level we can to provide our men in tow briefs or to spend more time talking about the culture of the countries that, you know, being more worldly in certain areas. And it's so easy to get so much more information than, you know, you know, there was no internet when I was a captain. My first email address was when I was a captain. And so the access to information is much better than it is today. So that's one part. I think the other gap I think about that I worry about is, as we are all looking and coming out of what we've been doing, you know, as an Air Force for the past three years, particularly in the Middle East, the capabilities we require for the future. And that's why I seek, and this is why accelerated change or lose is so important to me, is the capabilities we have today are not the capabilities we're gonna need from the future to make our nation successful. To make our nation successful. Not that we want to go to conflict, but to be able to deter as well. And so making that transition is where we need to be to be able to close that gap. At the same time, as you look across the joint force and start thinking about what we might have to do in a high-end fight, that's another aspect of a barrier. Matter of fact, we were in a brief yesterday where I thought we were very focused on one capability at the expense of some other things we need to be thinking about. And part of that, part of my role now is not just the service chief as the chief staff of the Air Force, but also as a joint chief, is how we raise, you know, those topics to go. These are the gaps that we need to be focused on a capability for the joint force to be able to be able to employ better. All right, thanks for the question. This is a pretty shy group. You guys are running pretty weak this morning. Senior Thomas from Nellis Air Force Base. You talk about 10, being the best, two being something we should give up on. When it comes to the Air Force, what is it that we do that's a two and what should we be, quote-unquote, giving up on and who should we be looking to to solve that solution? Yeah, as a two, I think one of the areas that I would highlight for ourselves is we don't stand up for ourselves enough as an Air Force to be able to talk about our capabilities and what we do and what we need to be able to do. I think the other services are fairly parochial in some cases about how they approach things, particularly here in Washington, DC, and we as an Air Force, I think play a little bit too nice. Now, I can't hire somebody to do that. And that's not what I'm gonna give up on, but it's really how we change our approach. And I'll just tell you what, if you go back and read, Xcelerate Changerl is one of the things I talked about was collaboration. And it was collaboration, internal to the Air Force, collaboration with industry and collaboration on the Hill with Congress. And so I've been really focused on that. And you probably, one of the things we put together was some narratives on some key things we wanna achieve for the Air Force and be able to be very consistent and persistent in our message moving forward. And it's something we need to change. Now, it's, like I said, I wouldn't hire anybody, but I think I can learn from what the other service would be able to do to actually, how do we make it better to display where the, be able to talk better about what the Air Force needs to go for. And so that's an area that I think we need to improve on. I will tell you that as we, as the National Defense Authorization Act that was signed by the President back in December, we were able now to start to retire some things that we've been having difficulty retiring. At the same time, what I've been thinking about, as a matter of fact, I wrote this down this morning, we have so many people that are so interested with the United States Air Force does and telling us how to do things. We need to step up and kind of highlight some of those things, be a little bold about it, because I really felt like, sometimes we show up each day, they take our lunch money, we come back the next day with more lunch money and get taken to the bank, which impacts our readiness. And so that's an area that we, we as an Air Force have to be, we gotta power our chest a little bit more about what we do for the nation that nobody else can do. Go back to what we did the last two weeks of August. No other nation, no other Air Force in the world could do what we did. Probably not the best ideal circumstances, but there was no other Air Force in the world that could do what we just did. And that's the thing about Air Force, we're very popular for what we're able to do, but we gotta be able to talk more boldly about what it is we do. So that to me is an area of improvement that we have to work on. And then we gotta be consistent with our message. And I think sometimes the feedback I get here, particularly DC, is we kind of, we keep changing our mind. And what someone told me here is the absence of a yes is not a no. And so sometimes we take the absence of a yes as a no and so we start changing our story versus going no. Keep pressing. And that's the thing I think we've gotta continue to work on to be able to better articulate what we wanna do as an Air Force. And so that, if I had to grade ourselves as an Air Force overall, that's what I'd give ourselves to you. What I'd give ourselves to six or seven is the aspect that we are actually, we get outstanding people that make things happen. No matter, you know, the lack of resources we give them, the lack of training in some areas, but it's not due to lack of trying. Part of that is that, that's the thing I learned about coming up here at the building is it's all about money, which means you gotta fight harder for it. You gotta make the case for it. And that's, that's the area I'm focused on. Thanks. Started chief heading from a USA fee since the, everyone in the room's bringing it a week. I'll give you one. So on the congressional engagements, so through the years, you know, I've been a chief for a couple of minutes. I've changed my perspective on staff dels and codels. And I know some of these people in the room are gonna have plenty of staff dels and codels coming to their bases. So some advice and just some mentorship maybe on how we should operate in that environment. Thanks, sir. No, that's actually actually a question. I will tell you the staff dels sometimes are more important than the codels because the members got a thousand things they're worried about. The staff dels, the folks from the staff are the ones that are probably focused on defense. And they're the ones that actually write the bills that go into legislation that either give us the authorization to do things or give us the appropriation to go execute. And so it's very important that there's a couple of things that I would really highlight to you. One is understand where the Air Force is at big picture wise. And what I've been trying to do is is really transmit with the action orders with the Accelerate Changer Lose and the narratives we've written at the MagCom Commanders app. And they're un-cost, but we actually, those are out and we'll make sure that the, I'll make sure that you have access to them. But it really talks about these big things where the Air Force is trying to head and to really understand those, where the Air Force is heading. Because what we've talked about is, you know, we don't have many voices, but one bullhorn. If we keep all saying the same thing by and large, what we need for the Air Force, that helps us have some level of consistency as we engage with these staff deals. The challenge we have sometimes is where we have some one-offs where either a base or a MagCom has something they wanna do and I already know we're not gonna fund it. It's one of the things that I've been focused on is making sure we're on the same message. So that's one part. The other part is allow them to meet your airman. It's great for them to talk to you, but it's better when they talk to your airman. And they can tell them stories about what it is they need in order to be able to execute what we're trying to get done. And particularly if it's a airman from their state or district because they'll make it, they'll build their relationship. And it goes into a little bit of the relationships matter. And you just don't, you know, when you get a co-dial or staff deal, you do wanna put some effort into it because they're the ones writing the checks. And if we don't invest that time with them, we just don't get as much money as many resources. So it's really important that you spend time with them as you lay things out. And really understand the big picture of Air Force and message we're trying to get as well. I realize it's made a little different down at the base level, but between the match comps and the number of Air Forces, they have those levels of detail. And so I'd ask you just to make sure as you're had prayer for a staff to a co-dial that's coming to your base that you reach out to your higher headquarters to go, where are some key messages that we can provide? And that's the thing I'm trying to really do is push that information down so you have it and be able to use it when they come to your base. And realize that they're captive audience when they're at your base. And it's a good way to actually show off the Air Force and show off your airmen as well. Good question, thanks. Good morning, Chief. This is scene Massar and Jackson from the Pentagon. My question is take care of airmen. With the prevalence of COVID with mental health is the hot topic issue we've all seen within our lives and our careers. With technology, is there a way that we can leverage the apps that are already out there to help our airmen get the help that they need? Because the airmen within the NCR, they're struggling getting mental health appointments. I'm struggling getting mental health appointments for my children. How can we leverage technology to help everyone? Yeah, thanks for the question. One of the areas that if you go back to pre-COVID, to be able to use telemedicine for mental health was something that really by law, a number of different locations you could not do. And so there is the ability to do using technology to allow for mental health appointments. I think the challenge we have now is there's just not enough mental health providers to satisfy the need. That is a challenge, whether you're inside of the Department of Defense military, but even outside of the military. So I don't have a good answer on how we actually provide appointments faster, other than the aspect of being able to use technology to actually, it actually does provide the providers more opportunities to see more patients. So that's one aspect. I think the other thing that I also want to focus on, this is one thing that I think that we can all work on. There's the aspect of what we do as leaders to help our airmen before they have a mental health crisis. It goes back to what I said earlier about annoying your airmen, spending time with them. So they feel confident that they can come down and sometimes some folks just want somebody that they can talk to and can fight in. And sometimes folks actually do need a mental health provider. And so what can we do as leaders to one provide a recourse for our airmen to come talk to us? How do we look at the tools that we provide our airmen when they go to airmen leadership school, squadron officer school, NCO Academy? Not to make them mental health providers, but to make them more empathetic. You look at the airmen leadership cause and one of those is emotional intelligence. So you're able to better to connect with airmen to help them through this process. One of the areas that SEMSAP just it's in working is a very access working group on the kind of fortifying the force initiative. What we're really trying to do is actually be able to very similar to what we've done on diversity and inclusion with their very access working groups is be able to talk to airmen about their challenges, wanting to get access to mental health, the process we make them go through to get there and the feedback, just like you described the how long it takes to get a mental health appointment or other tools of resiliency, where we actually wanted to, we give you the run around. We may have a number of good programs, but as an airmen in the field at the base, the ability to actually work through those programs and get the support you need, I think sometimes is lacking in, that's a part that we, particularly here in the pending, I have a need to have a better understanding of the aspect of, yeah, we may have a good program looks good on paper, but in execution it doesn't, it's not meeting the need of our airmen. So, I wish I had like an answer with you, I could say, hey, there's mental health providers at the ready, it can get you appointment as quickly as possible, but I'm gonna be realistic with you. It's a challenge for all of us. And this is something that we're gonna continue to work on and not giving up on it just because it's a challenge. I think it's something we gotta continue to work on. And this is something we gotta work on together as well. So I appreciate your feedback, but it's not that we're gonna have to continue to work on. Thanks. More in chief. Chief James from Langley. Just a question in regards to the feedback you're getting at your level from the airmen, whenever you're sitting to have a lunch with them, as far as making a connection from our real world threats like China and Russia, are they making that connection? Do they realize that those threats exist and the gravity of those threats? Thanks. I would say, thanks chief. I would say yes and no. In some airmen, maybe not as much, but there's others, based on the questions, and it's interesting, because sometimes I get some really deep questions from these young airmen. Senior airmen, A1C's. And so even the questions they ask me will challenge me. And to me that's a good sign. But there's others where the questions just aren't there. So there's a balancer. And I don't expect it, and it's really, I would say even in a room there today, there's probably different levels of understanding of this particular pacing challenge. And what I really look at, how do we continue to challenge ourselves? And so when someone brings up something and they start talking about it, you don't know about it. That's what I feel. Someone starts on something I don't know about it. I think I need to learn a little bit more about that. I challenge that I'm not bandwidth to actually spend as much time reading some of this stuff and be able to stay awake at night to read it as well. But the aspect there is, there are airmen that actually get it, but I also think that the more and more we start talking about this as leaders, the more and more airmen start to pick up on it. And it's a challenge to us too, because we got to stay a little bit ahead of the game as well. So when we're talking and get questions about it, how we approach it. So I would say yes or no, but I think it's getting better. And I will just tell you, based on my experience from at PAC-AF and now a year and a half as a chief, I've watched how things have evolved with deeper understanding of our pacing challenge. I would say, what we're seeing right now in Europe is another one that's actually teaching us some things. And it's important that we as airmen pick up on these things. And one of the things I would also highlight, I mean, I talked about intel briefs. I will tell you, I spend probably about half or more of my time reading unclassified information as much as I reclassified information on different things, just to get perspective that it may not get into the intel. I think that's an important aspect for all of us as well. So it's something that we got to continue to work on, which is why I have Action Order C to drive ourselves to really think about that. I know you're going to get a brief here from Ms. Krista Ock and Buck and Runs, our team on competition on strategic assessment and kind of where we are and some things that they were working on as well to help us with Action Order C. Thanks for the question, Chief. Good morning, sir. This is Senior Davis from USAFE Africa. With Accelerate Change or Lose, the main headline is the Air Force that we have today isn't necessarily the Air Force. We may need tomorrow. But what are some of the challenges that you're prioritizing for the challenges that we face right now today? Well, it's really how we balance risk. And so one of the challenges I have right now is the aspect of being in articulate how much Air Force we have available, how much capacity we have, and how we need to make sure that we maintain a level of readiness of that capacity as we transition to the future Air Force. And as you transition that future Air Force, you're also going to have some areas, as you make, for any of us that have been in a unit where you converted from one platform to another or did a mission change, you're not C1, combat ready, you're going to take a dip down, you're going to have to come back up. And so it's how we articulate that aspect. And that's the challenge I have is when I'm working with the various combat commands and the demands of those they have on the capacity we do have. And then at the same time, be able to make that transition to the future. The other part I'm really focused on as well is what is our current state of readiness and how did we get here? In some cases we are not doing so well. And part of my job here is to go articulate that to say, if you want the Air Force to be ready to go do things, we cannot burn it all up doing a bunch of other things that may not be as important. Maybe important in some cases, but we got to actually kind of balance that risk between what we're doing to support readiness for the service future modernization and the risk of what the combatant commands are working on as well. And that's, as a matter of fact, I had a meeting on Friday to do exactly that, to have that kind of conversation that you cannot continue to use the Air Force at the same rate and then be able to make the transition and have an Air Force that's going to be able to execute whether it's in the near term, the mid-term or the long-term. And so this goes back to one of your requests. We have got to be a little more vocal about where we are as an Air Force and how we maintain that level of readiness and capacity as we go forward, which is why we're going through the Air Force, Air Force Gen model with the four bands. So we can actually better articulate the impact of readiness if you continue to move capability forward. You use it, you keep filling the hole. You keep filling that hole. You're not going to have anything down in the future. That's exactly where we are for certain platforms. AWACS is a good example. And so that's the area that that is one of my, I would say probably one of my biggest challenges is to be able to articulate that and then have folks understand it because the Air Force is very popular. We've got great capability. We can get there very quickly, but we can't just keep using it and not really paying attention of readiness and future modernization. Thanks for the question. A.G., if it's Senior Solis from Hickam. Question on, as you talk readiness, moving out, et cetera, what are your thoughts on joint basing as we move forward as well as TFI when we talk readiness, moving out, et cetera, with near period adversaries? Over. Yeah, let me hit TFI first, not come back on joint basing because I do have some opinions on joint basing based on my PACF experience, on TFI. TFI is an important part of what we do. And I'll tell you, when you look at total force of all the services, the United States Air Force does it the best. When I was a Lieutenant Colonel here in the Pentagon, I ran the total force initiative, OPT, that set up Hill, Langley, Vermont, and several other areas were really focused on our path and where we are today for TFI. And so the key point I look at with TFI is the dialogue of making sure we have the right mix of capability, the right mix of active component versus reserve component and the right mix of overseas versus conus. And so the balance I have to have there is about a, for every, you know, squadron I have overseas, I need to have about one and a half to two squadrons of capability stateside to support those overseas rotations and PCSs. At the same time, you know, that drives a little bit of the active guard mix that we've got to pay attention to. And so I have a good relationship. Matter of fact, I'm talking to all 54 tags on Thursday to talk about where we are with the budget and what we're trying to get done and how that might impact not just the guard, but really the entire Air Force. And so that's an important aspect of this. Joint Basin. Joint Basin is not everything it's cracked up to be. And there was great visions that it was gonna save a bunch of money and I don't know that it'd save a bunch of money. And you just gotta think about the culture of our different services and how we operate and why people like coming to Air Force bases. We take care of our airmen and our families. The other services probably don't do it quite as well. And this is the reason when I was at Pack App, we made a big push to do some changes at Joint Range in Mariana, San Juan. And we were able to get some things back to the Air Force. I've talked to General Willis-Block about the same thing vis-a-vis their Joint Base Pearl Harbor Hickam. And I think we may have an opportunity here. Unfortunately, the rail incident was very bad. And I don't realize how much impact it had on all the folks there in Hawaii. But it did show us maybe an opportunity that there's some things that we can do for ourselves without having to do it all under one service. So it's a continuing conversation. It's a thing that we're gonna continue to highlight. We may not get the complete divorce. We still have to kind of live together, but there's probably some things we can bring back to the Air Force exactly like we did there on Guam. Thanks for the question. Chief Reed out of Greenville, Texas. Sir, can you speak to the acquisition and a sustainment strategy of the future? Many of our legacy platforms, we own the source data and we can make internal decisions with our fleets. Where the newer platforms, we have to ask contractors for permission more or less. Is there any plans in the future to kind of swing that pendulum back the other way? Actually, I would actually tell you, I think it's so much flipped. The older platforms, we own less of the data. We're going down a path on some of the newer platforms to arm more of the data. And so one of the things that we are doing with the platforms is to have a government reference architecture. Well, we actually kind of build the architecture. We drive aspects where we own the data. And so the two programs that are going out really well right now is the B21 and GBSD, Ground Base and GZE Assurance. We have the government reference architecture and we actually are driving some of the data. And those are probably the newest of the programs. The other thing is next generation air balance is probably the program we're also doing that with as well. The thing we're trying to do as we do these is how do we separate out the, in some cases, different systems? And I'll just use an airplane, for example. On older airplanes, the software for the flight controls and the mission systems are all intertwined. So anytime you take a change in the mission system, you have to go back and test the airplanes. It just takes a lot more time. What we're able to do now with kind of containerizing or Kubernetes is be able to separate out the flight control software from the mission software. So now I can have anybody compete on the mission software side or mission component. So as they meet form, fit and function, they can do the software that interact with the aircraft or the weapon system. And so that's the path we're on. And to do exactly that so that we own the data and if we need to make a change, we can drive it and I have to go back and pay in short amount of money to make changes. So that's all part of our digital acquisition approach with a number of different programs and we're having some success there. Some of their older partners will really have the challenges where we're not able to do that. Thanks for the question. All right, I can take, I'll take one more. I want to teach, thanks for taking my question. Chief Washington from Luke Air Force Base. You talked about capacity and our ability to meet demands on the force. Do you think that our inability to do so or the challenges that we face actually impact the deterrence measures that we have? Actually the question is, do you think that our enemies are still afraid of our force? I think they are. But this is why I've really excited to change or lose. Because they're not going to be that way forever if we don't change. Okay, we are outstanding Air Force, the greatest Air Force in the world. Probably the greatest Air Force in the history world. But you know what happens when you're number one or you're the defending Super Bowl champion? Everybody's gunning for you. Same thing for the United States Air Force. We cannot sit back and rest on our laurels and just go, hey, what was good enough today is good enough for tomorrow. Which is why we got to take a hard look at ourselves and be able to wake that change. This is the challenge we have. Not only external to the Air Force, but internally to the Air Force. Because if we walk around there and go, hey, I'm going to kill a program, there's somebody in love with that program or that capability or that career field. Some of those things we have to let go of to be able to make this shift to the future to ensure we're able to deter. Which goes into the whole aspect of action we're seeing competition. You got to understand our adversaries and what makes them tick, and what makes them nervous about our United States Air Force. And what things are trying to do to take away the advantages that we do have or road advances we do have. The better we understand that, the better we're able to deter. The thing I also think about is there's a balance between capability and capacity. We can have a very high-end capability, but not have the capacity to be able to use it. So if I've got only one of or a handful of a high-end capability, but I don't have a lot of them, does that deter? Or is it better that I have a lower-end capability that I have a lot of that I can spread out and use? And so that's part of why we do a war against. This is why we do these analysis to kind of figure out what is the right mix of capability to do this. And I wanted to fight combat and generate combat power and do air power anytime and anywhere, but it's also the aspect of how do we then ensure that it's gonna keep us in a level of competition over time so we don't go to war. So I appreciate your question. I didn't make you walk all the way up there and tell you you have to go sit down. So I forgot to take your question. So thanks for asking. Hey, so I appreciate the time with you. I've had it with you today. It's a much rather would have done this in person. And like I said, unfortunately, my counter sometimes is not my own. And I would say as you become a chief, that might be the case as well. The last piece of advice I give you is, again, take care of yourself, take some quality time for you because there's always something that can be done 24-7 as you move in this position of leadership. But you got to be rested, ready to go and feel healthy as you go forward. And the last thing I'd also share with you is what I started out with is, never throw a brick in a hydrant. If you feel strongly about it, speak up. And it's not gonna change if you don't speak up or try to take some action to get things done. Thanks for the opportunity to spend time with you today and look forward to seeing you around on Air Force. Take care.